"Some would call me a terrorist for what I do, but I get results nevertheless. I will maintain order." A low rumbling begins to shake the tower, working its way up from the lower levels towards the top. The shrieking sounds of bending metal calls out to the night as I crush the detonator in my hand. "If that means having to send the occasional message to the scum of Gotham, so be it."

"And I call you bat-**** crazy, pun intended," I said as I reached into my jacket pocket and grabbed the small bag inside.
I could feel the tower collapsing in on itself. We had to act fast. I had to act fast. Hood was too pissed off to do anything, so I did what I did best."SAND SNEAK ATTACK!" I yelled, tossing out a handful of sand from the bag in my pocket and throwing it into the eyes of Bane's men. The floor underneath us bucked as supports began to give way. "RUN!"

__________________

"These are the times that try men's souls... Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph."

-- Thomas Paine

"People never lie so much as after a hunt, during a war or before an election."
-- Otto von Bismarck

I spin around at the sound of the Question's cries, and without a word, a sharp buzz of gunfire erupts in the direction of my enemies, but the failing structural support of the deck beneath our feet throws my aim off substantially.

"UHHG!"

A plank cracks under my foot, dropping me to the crumbling floor and allowing the minigun to fall free from my grip and slide across the deck before tumbling over the ledge. Damn.

A glance to my already angered men tells them what they already knew. "Kill them if you can!" I yell over the sound of the collapsing building. "If not, evacuate immediately!"

__________________"Look into the soul of Bane and know the truth. We will topple your kingdom if it takes an eternity. We will defeat Hell."

As contractors to the US government, Bishop Laboratories housed many a top secret project. As such, security inside the facility was the highest. A dozen armed guards patrolled outside the facility. An electric fence surrounded the compound and the lab itself had three feet thick, steel reinforced walls. For all its security measures, all it took was one man's powers over Mother Nature to make it all crumbling down. The electric fence had been shattered to ice shards, the armed guards frozen and encased in blocks of ice. And now, ice was eating through the secure walls and eroding away the reinforced walls.

WHAM!

A frozen chunk of wall came crumbling down, allowing a perfect hole. A figure walked across the frozen rubble and entered the lab.

"Captain Cold to Top. I'm in."

"Proceed to lab 4F," the voice of Dr. Roscoe Dillon said into Cold's earpiece.

Snart acknowledged and came to a stop outside a sealed door marked 4F. A quick blast of frozen energy knocked the door down. Cold walked inside the lab where a box was sitting on a table. He popped open the box and looked inside at three vials, one filled with red liquid, one filled with green liquid, and one with blue liquid.

"I found it," Cold said into his mic. He picked the box up and looked at it. "What is it?"

"Need to know only, Snart. Now--""That," a deep, calm voice crackled across the line. It was a voice that Snart had only heard once before. The time he had met Dillon's boss. The Octopus. "That is how I take the Twin Cities for all they're worth."

Bishop Laboratories
Keystone, KS
10:34 AM

I dust down a lab table while James Forrest, a fellow lab tech with the KCPD, snaps photos with a digital camera. In the month I've been with the CSI lab, Forrest has been the most helpful and easygoing.

"Any prints on that counter, Bart?" He asks as he snaps off a few more shots.

"I'm not getting anything."

"Don't see the point," Forrest grumbles. "All that ice outside. Who else could have done this?"

Forrest and I have been here with Detectives Chyre and Morillo since about seven this morning. A day watchman came to work for the shift change, only to find all the guards frozen solid and ice everywhere. Forrest is right, there's only one person this could be. Lenny Snart, better known as Captain Cold.

"How's it coming?" Morillo asks as he peeks his head into the lab.

"It's going," Forrest replies. "We can't find much trace evidence. Any idea on what was in here?"

"Bishop Labs is sending a rep," Morillo replies with a shrug. "We'll find out soon enough."

A few minutes later, Captain Frye arrives on the scene with two familiar faces.

"Forrest," he says as he steps into the lab with the two men. "If this is Snart behind this, then I decided to bring in two experts. Captain Jay Garrick and Lieutenant Barry Allen from Central City."

Dad and Jay shake hands with Forrest before I turn to them both and smile.

"Hi, Bart Allen. Please and punch to meet you both!"

"Say, you look familiar," Dad says with a smirk. "I think I arrested a kid that looked just like you a few years ago."

"I remember him," Jay adds. "A real smartass."

"Forrest, this is my dad."

"Yeah, Bart. I kinda gathered that.""I'll let you two get back to work," Dad says with a nod.

I nod and Jay winks at me as the three of them leave. Forrest and I are about to start back on working the scene when...

"I demand entrance to the crime scene," I hear a familiar voice shouting from the hallway outside. "I am a fully licensed private investigator, hired by Bishop Labs to induct a separate investigation into the break-in here!"

"No," I say in disbelief. I walk into the hallway and see Captain Frye and Chyre arguing with... "Ralph?"
"Bart!" Ralph says with a bright smile. "Help me out here, bud! I'm trying to get in."

"You little snot," Chyre growls. "You're lucky we don't rip your goddamn head off!""Calm the hell down, Fred," Frye says with a sigh. "Mister Dibny... Look, you can look over the scene, but once our techs are done with it. Okay?"

I look at Ralph and nod. He looks at me, then back to Frye, then back to me before finally nodding. "Okay, okay. Fine."

Ralph starts to walk back down the hallway and I finally get back to work.
"The lab hiring a PI?" Forrest asks. "Sounds fishy to me."

"I know," I say as I pack up my fingerprint gear.

Captain Cold broke into this heavily guarded facility and took something that Bishop Labs wants back so bad, they're willing to hire Ralph to get it for them. What exactly did Snart steal? And if it's that important, what's the planning to do with it?

*****

Central City, MO12:05 PM

Mark Mardon stood on the roof of the Fox Building, Central City's tallest structure. Central City and Keystone City across the Missouri River were all stretched out before him.

"Mardon to Dillon,"he said into the bluetooth in his ear.
"What have I told you?" Dillon angrily replied on the other end of the line. "Codenames only."

Mardon disconnected the line and pulled out his bluetooth. "Prick," he grumbled as he stuck a pair of earbuds into his ear. He started up the MP3 player in his pocket and activated his weather wand. Flight of the Bumblebee began to play as Mardon guided and flicked the wand like an orchestra conductor.

On cue, dark storm clouds began to roll across the skies over the twin cities. Lightning flashed through the clouds and began to crash down into the streets. Mardon flicked and twitched the weather wand. On this stage, at this height, he was the conductor of a great orchestra of natural force. The lightning, rain, and thunder were following his direction, playing his notes in harmony to create a symphony. And a glorious symphony of power and force it would be.

__________________

"These are the times that try men's souls... Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph."

-- Thomas Paine

"People never lie so much as after a hunt, during a war or before an election."
-- Otto von Bismarck

"I am the man who robbed your city of its dark knight defender. I have conquered its families of crime, I put the fear of God into its citizens, and I am going to keep this hellhole under my thumb until the fates themselves pry it from my hands. Some would call me a terrorist for what I do, but I get results nevertheless. I will maintain order. If that means having to send the occasional message to the scum of Gotham, so be it."

Bruce?!

I feel my body run cold at the admittance. For the last few weeks, I've been working the one case that no one in Gotham City even knows exists. Finding the man who singlehandedly attacked - and subsequently dismantled - The Batman. To the public, Bruce was attacked by a gang of burglars who broke into the penthouse and caught him off guard, but I've been over the scene of the damage more than once. I've seen the blood smeared across the walls, the precision that was used to break every ounce of defense that Bruce had to fight off his lone attacker. It was no burglary. Someone sought him out, wore him down, and destroyed him.

Now I know who. The man in the mask, promising to take everything that Batman stood for and twisting it to his own distorted sense of justice. And that man happens to be the killer of hundreds of innocent people tonight. In my anger, I already promised to kill him for that.

He's just made it a hell of alot more personal.

"And I call you bat-**** crazy, pun intended,"

Just as the effects of the implosive device reach the top-level floor of Wonder Tower and we all feel the quake, Question seizes the opportunity and throws a palm full of what looks to be beach sand in the faces of the men hired by this monster. Screams of agony and stray bullets riddle the night's sky, as we all feel the ground slowly begin to buckle from underneath us.

"SAND SNEAK ATTACK! RUN!"

The ground is just beginning to wobble and bend as I look back at him, then look at the masked man, struggling to keep firm hold of the situation himself. Some beacon of "order" he turned out to be. Question runs up and tugs at my jacket to get me to run off in the opposite direction, where it's safe, but I rip my arm away.

"Go. Get yourself to safety,"

I turn back to the masked man and crack my knuckles.

"He's not getting away."

Without a second's hesitation, I launch myself at him and drive both boots into his chest, vaulting into a calculated three-fingered jab at his throat. Then I start to go to work on his face, beating the vital points with my fist so that he can't hear or see well enough to placate any kind of devastating attack.

It might be overkill, and maybe even the most dangerous thing I've ever done in my life, but he pushed me over the edge. The bastard freely killed innocent people for nothing. He crippled my best friend - the man I've often considered to be Gotham's last real hope.

A wild kick lashes out at my enemy, not focused enough to be deadly, but fast enough to force the nuisance back. "You should have joined your friend." It takes but a moment for my senses to recover, but it is more than enough time for Red Hood to regain his fighting stance, tremulous as it may be with the building falling under our feet.

A burst of gunfire from one of my men in the Question's direction. "Batman couldn't stop me. What chance do you think you have?" I throw the next punch, swinging my knuckles downward with the intent of breaking his arms when he brings them up to block, but my opponent is smart. He knows that I have the advantage of brute strength between the two of us, so he opts to dodge, quickly tumbling to the side and prepares to launch his own naturally well timed and practiced kick. I'm not giving him the opportunity.

Instead of waiting for him, I press the attack and leap over my enemy, slamming my boot into the back of his skull as I pass. The helmet is the only thing that saves him from a fast death right then and there.

Landing on my hands, I spring to my feet immediately, but nearly slip. It seems that both of us appear to be having trouble gaining sure footing right now, as gravity takes hold of the deck and the surface starts to tilt sharply downward.

"I've struck a chord, no?" Most of my people have already departed, while the remaining ones are busying themselves with chasing down the Question. Regardless, I'm not worried about them overhearing me over the racket of gunfire. "It was enough for Wayne to know that I was his opposite," I say, not caring whether or not the Red Hood already knew Batman's identity, "but you see yourself avenging him? Ha!" The deck is almost at a forty-five degree angle now. "I suppose they say that fortune favors the bold."

__________________"Look into the soul of Bane and know the truth. We will topple your kingdom if it takes an eternity. We will defeat Hell."

Giganta grunted painfully as a pair of powerful impacts slammed into her calves, two large steel-framed sedans having rammed into her. The enormous woman staggered and toppled forward, coming down with a thunderous crash.

Very clever, she admitted to herself begrudgingly, shrinking down to human size inside the cloud of dust and rubble that her fall had created. They're trying to use the city itself as a weapon against me.

Obscured by the dust and debris, she ran into a back alley, rounding a corner and finding herself behind a four-story building in the next street over.

Two can play at that game, she thought, grinning as she knelt down and placed her hands near the building's base and then began to grow.

As Giganta's size and mass increased, her strength grew exponentially with it. Her fingers dug under the steel and concrete and mortar, grabbing into the building's foundation. With a strained grunt, she lifted along one side, ripping the structural supports out and toppling the building towards her enemies like an uprooted tree.

Two can play at that game, she thought, grinning as she knelt down and placed her hands near the building's base and then began to grow.

As Giganta's size and mass increased, her strength grew exponentially with it. Her fingers dug under the steel and concrete and mortar, grabbing into the building's foundation. With a strained grunt, she lifted along one side, ripping the structural supports out and toppling the building towards her enemies like an uprooted tree.

Flag, Deadshot, and the Atom looked up as the building began to careen to the ground towards them.

"RUN!" Flag shouted. He and Lawton took off while the Atom shrunk and disappeared from sight. The two men ran as fast as they could while the shadow of the building began to encroach on them.

WHAM!

The building smashed to the ground, knocking Deadshot and Flag off their feet as debris and chunks of concrete flew through the air.

"Deadshot," Flag croaked from his prone position on the ground. He coughed and spit out a mouth full of dust and dirt. "Deadshot, report?"

"Over here," Lawton feebly replied. He was to Flag's right, covered in dust and chunks of brick.

"Flag, what the hell just happened?"

"Giganta just threw a building at us," Flag said as he stood up on shaky legs.

"Well, get out the area as fast as you can. Fighters are inbound. Waller, out."

A roaring noise filled the air and the two men looked up overhead. Three fighter jets passed over them and headed towards Giganta, their weapons locked on the large woman.

__________________

"These are the times that try men's souls... Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph."

-- Thomas Paine

"People never lie so much as after a hunt, during a war or before an election."
-- Otto von Bismarck

Flag, Deadshot, and the Atom looked up as the building began to careen to the ground towards them.

"RUN!" Flag shouted. He and Lawton took off while the Atom shrunk and disappeared from sight. The two men ran as fast as they could while the shadow of the building began to encroach on them.

WHAM!

The building smashed to the ground, knocking Deadshot and Flag off their feet as debris and chunks of concrete flew through the air.

"Deadshot," Flag croaked from his prone position on the ground. He coughed and spit out a mouth full of dust and dirt. "Deadshot, report?"

"Over here," Lawton feebly replied. He was to Flag's right, covered in dust and chunks of brick.

"Flag, what the hell just happened?"

"Giganta just threw a building at us," Flag said as he stood up on shaky legs.

"Well, get out the area as fast as you can. Fighters are inbound. Waller, out."

A roaring noise filled the air and the two men looked up overhead. Three fighter jets passed over them and headed towards Giganta, their weapons locked on the large woman.

The Atom climbs out of a pocket in Flagg's uniform and grows back to 6 inches and floats next to Flagg and says, "It was the only thing I could think at the time."

She sees the fighters pass over head and says, "Oh no! Colonel call them off if you can! If those things miss her the collateral damage will be a catastrophic. We have to find a way to get her out of here into the open if nothing else."

Atom looks around and says to the crew, "If there is a bug taunting you what the first thing you wanna do to it? And if it keeps buggin you you'll chase it!"

They continue staring at her as she says, "There's an open field less than 2 miles east of here. If I can annoy her enough, even more than I am doing to you all right now she'll follow me. We get her into the open then the planes got a better chance and collateral damage is reduced."

She asks, "What do you think or do you wanna take a chance that the jets can nail her?"

__________________
Know yourself & your enemy & you need not fear the outcome of a thousand battles-- General Sun-Tzu

Instead of waiting for him, I press the attack and leap over my enemy, slamming my boot into the back of his skull as I pass. The helmet is the only thing that saves him from a fast death right then and there.

Landing on my hands, I spring to my feet immediately, but nearly slip. It seems that both of us appear to be having trouble gaining sure footing right now, as gravity takes hold of the deck and the surface starts to tilt sharply downward.

"I've struck a chord, no?" Most of my people have already departed, while the remaining ones are busying themselves with chasing down the Question. Regardless, I'm not worried about them overhearing me over the racket of gunfire. "It was enough for Wayne to know that I was his opposite," I say, not caring whether or not the Red Hood already knew Batman's identity, "but you see yourself avenging him? Ha!" The deck is almost at a forty-five degree angle now. "I suppose they say that fortune favors the bold."

Despite the pain that came with his last attack, knowing that the helmet's compromised, I manage to keep myself in check long enough to realize that the ground beneath me is starting to tilt. My stance finally slips and I just barely launch into a spin, pushing myself off of the slab that's already starting to plunge towards Gotham. Latching onto one of the broken sections of concrete still attached to the momentarily standing portion of the Tower, desperation to stay atop kicks in and I start fishing through the inner-folds of my jacket, concealing a few choice toys that could help me in a time of need. I would say that dangling over thirty feet above the skyline qualifies. Trying to get to me. Keep me distracted with taunts. Two can play at that game.

I watch as he effortlessly avoids befalling the same peril, using most of his strength to gain a proper footing on the ledge across. Finally settling on a weapon, I produce the bowie knife and stab into the stone ruins of the Tower's observation deck, using it as leverage to violently pull myself up. Had the blade outfitted with a special tip for climbing, but I never thought I'd actually use it for that. Always just figured it'd cut the hell out of a hapless thug's revolver barrel.

"Bold? For bringing a fight to you? That's almost funny,", I shout behind grit teeth, performing a somersault that brings me back onto a flat surface. "Using hired muscle to send a message. Blowing up an empty tower just to prove something. You really think any of that impresses me? It's people like you that I really find pathetic. Hell, it's practically making you an unfair target..."

I produce the blade and sneer back as he rushes me. He knows Bruce's identity. He attacked him at his lowest point. If he thinks that makes me afraid of him, he's wrong. It just proves that he lacks something more than the average criminal. And at the end of it all, it only just pushes me harder to make him pay.

"But then again, what should I expect?"

"From a coward who'll jump a man in his own home."

Refusing to let myself become intimidated - by either the opponent or the surrounding circumstances - I lunge at him with the blade held high, ready to show him just how bold I can really be.

I dust down a lab table while James Forrest, a fellow lab tech with the KCPD, snaps photos with a digital camera. In the month I've been with the CSI lab, Forrest has been the most helpful and easygoing.

"Any prints on that counter, Bart?" He asks as he snaps off a few more shots.

"I'm not getting anything."

"Don't see the point," Forrest grumbles. "All that ice outside. Who else could have done this?"

Forrest and I have been here with Detectives Chyre and Morillo since about seven this morning. A day watchman came to work for the shift change, only to find all the guards frozen solid and ice everywhere. Forrest is right, there's only one person this could be. Lenny Snart, better known as Captain Cold.

"How's it coming?" Morillo asks as he peeks his head into the lab.

"It's going," Forrest replies. "We can't find much trace evidence. Any idea on what was in here?"

"Bishop Labs is sending a rep," Morillo replies with a shrug. "We'll find out soon enough."

A few minutes later, Captain Frye arrives on the scene with two familiar faces.

"Forrest," he says as he steps into the lab with the two men. "If this is Snart behind this, then I decided to bring in two experts. Captain Jay Garrick and Lieutenant Barry Allen from Central City."

Dad and Jay shake hands with Forrest before I turn to them both and smile.

"Hi, Bart Allen. Please and punch to meet you both!"

"Say, you look familiar," Dad says with a smirk. "I think I arrested a kid that looked just like you a few years ago."

"I remember him," Jay adds. "A real smartass."

"Forrest, this is my dad."

"Yeah, Bart. I kinda gathered that.""I'll let you two get back to work," Dad says with a nod.

I nod and Jay winks at me as the three of them leave. Forrest and I are about to start back on working the scene when...

"I demand entrance to the crime scene," I hear a familiar voice shouting from the hallway outside. "I am a fully licensed private investigator, hired by Bishop Labs to induct a separate investigation into the break-in here!"

"No," I say in disbelief. I walk into the hallway and see Captain Frye and Chyre arguing with... "Ralph?"
"Bart!" Ralph says with a bright smile. "Help me out here, bud! I'm trying to get in."

"You little snot," Chyre growls. "You're lucky we don't rip your goddamn head off!""Calm the hell down, Fred," Frye says with a sigh. "Mister Dibny... Look, you can look over the scene, but once our techs are done with it. Okay?"

I look at Ralph and nod. He looks at me, then back to Frye, then back to me before finally nodding. "Okay, okay. Fine."

Ralph starts to walk back down the hallway and I finally get back to work.
"The lab hiring a PI?" Forrest asks. "Sounds fishy to me."

"I know," I say as I pack up my fingerprint gear.

Captain Cold broke into this heavily guarded facility and took something that Bishop Labs wants back so bad, they're willing to hire Ralph to get it for them. What exactly did Snart steal? And if it's that important, what's the planning to do with it?

*****

Central City, MO12:05 PM

Mark Mardon stood on the roof of the Fox Building, Central City's tallest structure. Central City and Keystone City across the Missouri River were all stretched out before him.

"Mardon to Dillon,"he said into the bluetooth in his ear.
"What have I told you?" Dillon angrily replied on the other end of the line. "Codenames only."

Mardon disconnected the line and pulled out his bluetooth. "Prick," he grumbled as he stuck a pair of earbuds into his ear. He started up the MP3 player in his pocket and activated his weather wand. Flight of the Bumblebee began to play as Mardon guided and flicked the wand like an orchestra conductor.

On cue, dark storm clouds began to roll across the skies over the twin cities. Lightning flashed through the clouds and began to crash down into the streets. Mardon flicked and twitched the weather wand. On this stage, at this height, he was the conductor of a great orchestra of natural force. The lightning, rain, and thunder were following his direction, playing his notes in harmony to create a symphony. And a glorious symphony of power and force it would be.

Keystone City Police Crime Lab
12:05 PM

After collecting what little evidence we could at Bishop Labs, Forrest and I headed back to the lab to start processing it. "It's just now lunch time," Forrest said, glancing at the clock on the wall. I looked up from my microscope and shook my head. "Oh, no."

"Oh, yeah," he said with a smirk. "New guy gets lunch. Isn't that right, Singh?"

Singh leaned in from the office and winked. "I want a chicken Caesar salad. Patty wants a double cheeseburger, hold the onions."

"Fine, fine, fine," I grumbled under my breath. I grabbed my keys and headed out to the parking lot. The dark clouds rolling in threw me back. It was sunny and nice an hour ago when Forrest and I came back from the crime scene. My phone suddenly vibrates. A text message. Before I can answer it, a blinding bolt of lightning struck the street in front of the PD. The thunderclap knocked me on the ground.

KRAKOOOOOOOOOM!

I stood up, dazed from what happened, and looked up as a funnel cloud began to descend upon the city. Bad weather, this intense and this fast? I had a good idea who it was.

A few seconds later, I was in my Flash gear and running through the streets as fast as I could. Hail the size of golf balls began to fall to the ground as more tornadoes touched down in Keystone and Central.

The Weather Wizard is out there somewhere, doing all this. And I'm going to find him.

Central City Police Department
12:03 PM

Ralph Dibny paced in the lobby of the police station, impatiently checking his watch. Ralph pulled out his phone and sent a quick text to Bart. He looked up when he saw a uniformed officer enter the lobby. "Excuse me," Ralph said to the officer, looking at the man's nameplate. "Uhh, Officer Colt, I need to speak with Lieutenant Allen or Captain Garrick."

"Can't help you," Denny Colt said. "Even if I knew where they were, we got proper channels to go through."

"Ralph Dibny. I'm a private investigator and I have important information concerning last night's break-in at Bishop Labs."

"But that's Keystone. KCPD has jurisdiction."

"I know... but it's important. Central City as well as Keystone may be in danger..."

The two men were interrupted as a deafening thunderclap tore through the sky.

Star Hill Reservoir
Blue Springs, MO
12:07 PM

The van pulled up to the reservoir at the top of the hill. The reservoir was far away from the city that the storm clouds, lightning, and funnel clouds that were tearing into Central and Keystone could be seen. Two men stepped out the van. The driver, a tall and heavyset man, pulled a pistol from his waistband. The passenger, a short and bald man, had a briefcase in his right hand, a walkie talkie in his left hand.

"Cobra to Top," the short man said into the walkie talkie. "Mortez and I are in position."

"Proceed as planned," Dillon's reply crackled through the channel.

Cobra tucked the walkie talkie into his waistband and turned to his cohort. "Let's go."

Mortez nodded and cocked the gun.

__________________

"These are the times that try men's souls... Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph."

-- Thomas Paine

"People never lie so much as after a hunt, during a war or before an election."
-- Otto von Bismarck

"As of this moment, we're standing outside of the barricade instituted just beyond the front gates at Wonder Tower. In an unprecedented turn of events, police have said to be on high alert ever since the violent crimes were originally perpetrated earlier this evening in the East End, going as far as to lock away several access points from the rest of Gotham. Comissioner Gordon has been unavailible for comment at this time, but sources close to the department have stressed that there is an evacuation underway of tennants in the neighboring districts."

"But as the night that many have called to be the worst act of citywide brutality in the city's history stretches into the morning hours, the question on everyone's minds remains intact. Are the police doing enough to contain the chaos? While local authorities have arrived in full-force just outside the barricade, a rising number of skeptics have voiced their outrage over the department's lack of ability to protect those living within the East End. Gothamites everywhere have vocalized their concerns through social media websites, such as Facebook, to react to the heavy blame placed upon the Gotham PD's shoulders."

"One such critic is Gotham's own district attorney, Harvey Dent, who has infamously used his personal page to garner political support through a campaign to clean up the department's alleged corruption. Following the appeal and release of convicted mobster Carmine Falcone, Dent's crusade to overturn the ruling made by Judge Vargas nearly landed him in hot water, but tonight's events have once again prompted a frenzy of angered posts directed at police. Is Harvey Dent right? Has the department been proven ineffective by tonight's events, or has the situation stirred unnessecary criticism? Sound off with your own opinions by visiting our website, gothamtonight.org, and voting on today's---"

Finally deciding to pull myself away from such absurdity, I turn down the volume of the telivision and pour myself another glass of brandy. The smell of it is enough to put my mind at ease, but I find myself unable to do anything but sit here, in the darkness of the penthouse. Reconstruction of the main rooms is still underway, but after tonight, I cannot find the will to carry on with my work. I can still hear the explosions and gunfire outside, a haunting reminder of what the city has become in only a few short hours. Taking a drink of the glass' contents only momentarily distracts me from it.

It has been a difficult month, this one. With Mr. Wayne's condition continuing to remain the way it is, I've found myself becoming less accustomed to the life before this. My daily routines have all bled into eachother, threatening to undo all of the hard work I've put into this place. I have now begun to understand Bruce's penchant for drinking away his nightly struggles - not only physically, but emotionally aswell. It seemed as though it were the only way he could truly function, towards the end of it. Before it all crept back up to do him in.

Now Gotham's become a virtual hell on Earth. Part of me wishes he would just wake up and finally deliver us from it, because if he were ever good at anything, it was that. Defending us, devoting his life to this unnatural servitude of his. But another part of me screams out tonight, telling me that I'm wrong. He shouldn't be allowed to see this. The city has come undone without him, and if it wouldn't destroy him to see it in such a manner, it would only enforce the idea that it needs him. And he would never return from the abyss of his own existence.

Bloody hell. Listen to me, prattling on like it's end of things. I suppose I should be partly ashamed for being so grim. I was meant for more than this, slumping about and wondering how long it would take for me to leave it all behind. But I suppose it can't be helped. Withering conditions, and all.

"And with Mayor Krol's statements only adding fuel to the fire, Gotham can only wonder what happens next. With no word on what will..."

My attention is caught by something happening onscreen. It appears that Ms. Vale of the news is being told something from offscreen. Her eyes dart upwards, the cameraman also panning to the disturbance above.

"Oh my god, run! It's coming down!"

The camera feed abruptly shuts off as they scramble to leave, and I begin to hear a loud noise from outside. Placing my glass on the table, I notice the ground begin to shake as I stand, winded from the consumption of alchohol. Knew I'd overdone it. But that all leaves me behind as I stumble over to the window, peering out towards the skyline. What exactly greets me is something that I would think will be hard to forget for some time.

"My word..."

Wonder Tower. The entire structure is collasping onto itself. Not from an explosion, it seems, but an implosive blast that rips the metal spires away in an instant. Debris and rubble are fast falling, threatening to rip through the neighboring streets.

This cannot be happening. There has been enough chaos tonight.

I stare back at the glass on the table. Then turn, witnessing the further destruction of the Tower's collapse. And I suddenly feel even more ashamed for not acting quicker than before. I wasn't meant to be wallowing in self-pity. I was meant to carry on his fight. And it is a fight that I suddenly feel is worth carrying on.

Not for him. Certainly not for me. But now, as I finally understand... for the city.

Bruce wouldn't have stood for this.

Trying to get myself straightened, I venture to the last area of the penthouse that I ever thought I'd be running to this evening: The study.

And within it, the entrance to a place that has gone untouched ever since that fateful night...

Oswald and his associates finish enjoying their meal while discussing business.

Oswald's L-Phone rings and his source in the Mayor's office tells him that Mayor Thorne is on the edge. The Wonder tower attack has him on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

Oswald replies, "Excellent news. Now is the time. Thank you."

He hangs up and says to the gathered crew, "My source in the Mayor's office says he is on the verge of a nervous breakdown. It's time to send him on his way."

Oswald finishes his drink and says, "So we are all in agreement. We first hit 4 of the businesses where Wayne is a minority share holder on Main Street, and then after they've been hit we go for Wayne Enterprises."

They all nod and say, "yes."

Oswald says, "I should warn all of you now. Things are about to very ugly and dangerous. we could left wide open for attack by some of the smaller gangs or gangs outside of our territory. If you don't have the stomach for this...."

Oswald points to the door and says, "Leave now, because once I give the order we're all in this until I get control of Wayne Enterprises, or we die in a hail of gun fire with the police."

Oswald says, "Going once, going twice..."

He picks up an untracable cell-phone and dials a number and says, "Go time. The dress shop and then the deli."

Oswald hangs up the phone and then smashes it.

He looks around lights a cigar and says, "The War for Gotham's soul begins now."

__________________
Know yourself & your enemy & you need not fear the outcome of a thousand battles-- General Sun-Tzu

After collecting what little evidence we could at Bishop Labs, Forrest and I headed back to the lab to start processing it. "It's just now lunch time," Forrest said, glancing at the clock on the wall. I looked up from my microscope and shook my head. "Oh, no."

"Oh, yeah," he said with a smirk. "New guy gets lunch. Isn't that right, Singh?"

Singh leaned in from the office and winked. "I want a chicken Caesar salad. Patty wants a double cheeseburger, hold the onions."

"Fine, fine, fine," I grumbled under my breath. I grabbed my keys and headed out to the parking lot. The dark clouds rolling in threw me back. It was sunny and nice an hour ago when Forrest and I came back from the crime scene. My phone suddenly vibrates. A text message. Before I can answer it, a blinding bolt of lightning struck the street in front of the PD. The thunderclap knocked me on the ground.

KRAKOOOOOOOOOM!

I stood up, dazed from what happened, and looked up as a funnel cloud began to descend upon the city. Bad weather, this intense and this fast? I had a good idea who it was.

A few seconds later, I was in my Flash gear and running through the streets as fast as I could. Hail the size of golf balls began to fall to the ground as more tornadoes touched down in Keystone and Central.

The Weather Wizard is out there somewhere, doing all this. And I'm going to find him.

Central City Police Department
12:03 PM

Ralph Dibny paced in the lobby of the police station, impatiently checking his watch. Ralph pulled out his phone and sent a quick text to Bart. He looked up when he saw a uniformed officer enter the lobby. "Excuse me," Ralph said to the officer, looking at the man's nameplate. "Uhh, Officer Colt, I need to speak with Lieutenant Allen or Captain Garrick."

"Can't help you," Denny Colt said. "Even if I knew where they were, we got proper channels to go through."

"Ralph Dibny. I'm a private investigator and I have important information concerning last night's break-in at Bishop Labs."

"But that's Keystone. KCPD has jurisdiction."

"I know... but it's important. Central City as well as Keystone may be in danger..."

The two men were interrupted as a deafening thunderclap tore through the sky.

Star Hill Reservoir
Blue Springs, MO
12:07 PM

The van pulled up to the reservoir at the top of the hill. The reservoir was far away from the city that the storm clouds, lightning, and funnel clouds that were tearing into Central and Keystone could be seen. Two men stepped out the van. The driver, a tall and heavyset man, pulled a pistol from his waistband. The passenger, a short and bald man, had a briefcase in his right hand, a walkie talkie in his left hand.

"Cobra to Top," the short man said into the walkie talkie. "Mortez and I are in position."

"Proceed as planned," Dillon's reply crackled through the channel.

Cobra tucked the walkie talkie into his waistband and turned to his cohort. "Let's go."

Mortez nodded and cocked the gun.

Central City, MO
12:07 PM

Tornadoes touching down left and right in the city, hail falling from the sky, lightning crashing all around. And me, right in the middle of it, running for my life. I could feel the static electricity raising the hair on my head and arms a fraction of a second before I dodged another bolt of lightning.

Mardon had to have me in his sights, that much figured. I raced down a street with thunderbolts nipping at heels. I cut hard to the left and zig-zagged at superspeed down the road. Ten blocks over, the Fox building loomed. There, that has to be where he's at. The Twin Cities' tallest building, perfect spot to camp out on top of and rain down all this weather. I started to make my way towards the Fox building, dodging bolts of lightning and fighting 100 MPH winds as I ran.

At the base of the tower, Mardon began to pour it on with full on tornadoes trying to pull me off my path. I raced around them, zig-zagging and keeping rhythm in my head.

"One-two, chachacha--," I said, dancing out the way of a lightning bolt at superspeed. "Three-four, chachacha--," I said with a spin, running around a funnel cloud.

Just like that, I was past Mardon's weather traps and up the side of the building.

Racing towards the Weather Wizard's perch.

Axis Chemicals-Kansas
Keystone City, KS
12:10 PM

Michelle Rory walked through the warehouse of Axis Chemicals-Kansas. Her heat containment suit was sealed and pressurized. The oxygen was flowing from the tank on her back to her breather mask. On her hip holsters were her two flame-throwing guns."We ready to go, Lassie?"A voice said from behind her. Rory turned and saw the image of Mirror Master staring back at her inside the shiny reflection of an oxygen tank.

"Depends," she said through the mic inside her suit. "What's the status on the staff?"

"Dealt with," McCulloch said as he leaped out the reflection. Unlike Rory, he had no guns or specialty weapons. His special talents were his own, not gadgets and guns.

"Standby," Dillon said into their ear. "Weather Wizard's part is coming to an end... right now. Okay, start your parts now."

"Right," Heatwave said, pulling her heatguns from their holsters.

"Burn, baby, burn," McCulloch said with a large grin.

Fox Building
Central City, MO
12:11 PM

"One-two, chachacha--." My fists crashed into Weather Wizard's face and body in a gentle and smooth rhythm. "Three-four, chachacha--." I struck another blow and then tripped him up, sending Mardon sprawling to the ground and his weather wand up into the air. I zipped over and caught the wand before it hit the ground, and then looked down at Mardon. "And that is how I kick you butt in style."

As soon as the weather wand was out of his control, the skies began to clear and brighten, the bad weather dissipating as quickly as it had appeared.BOOOOOOOM

I turned at the sound of explosion and saw a fireball flashing up over the city. The explosion came from somewhere across the bridge in Keystone.

"Oh, boy," I muttered. "One of those days..."I turned to the semi-conscious Weather Wizard and took off, placing him in the lobby of the CCPD, handcuffed, dazed and separated from his wand.

With that garbage taken out, I began to race across the bridge back into Keystone to take on the explosion and its cause.

__________________

"These are the times that try men's souls... Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph."

-- Thomas Paine

"People never lie so much as after a hunt, during a war or before an election."
-- Otto von Bismarck

Despite the pain that came with his last attack, knowing that the helmet's compromised, I manage to keep myself in check long enough to realize that the ground beneath me is starting to tilt. My stance finally slips and I just barely launch into a spin, pushing myself off of the slab that's already starting to plunge towards Gotham. Latching onto one of the broken sections of concrete still attached to the momentarily standing portion of the Tower, desperation to stay atop kicks in and I start fishing through the inner-folds of my jacket, concealing a few choice toys that could help me in a time of need. I would say that dangling over thirty feet above the skyline qualifies. Trying to get to me. Keep me distracted with taunts. Two can play at that game.

I watch as he effortlessly avoids befalling the same peril, using most of his strength to gain a proper footing on the ledge across. Finally settling on a weapon, I produce the bowie knife and stab into the stone ruins of the Tower's observation deck, using it as leverage to violently pull myself up. Had the blade outfitted with a special tip for climbing, but I never thought I'd actually use it for that. Always just figured it'd cut the hell out of a hapless thug's revolver barrel.

"Bold? For bringing a fight to you? That's almost funny,", I shout behind grit teeth, performing a somersault that brings me back onto a flat surface. "Using hired muscle to send a message. Blowing up an empty tower just to prove something. You really think any of that impresses me? It's people like you that I really find pathetic. Hell, it's practically making you an unfair target..."

I produce the blade and sneer back as he rushes me. He knows Bruce's identity. He attacked him at his lowest point. If he thinks that makes me afraid of him, he's wrong. It just proves that he lacks something more than the average criminal. And at the end of it all, it only just pushes me harder to make him pay.

"But then again, what should I expect?"

"From a coward who'll jump a man in his own home."

Refusing to let myself become intimidated - by either the opponent or the surrounding circumstances - I lunge at him with the blade held high, ready to show him just how bold I can really be.

For a brief moment, the Red Hood's words strike deeply and echo my own feelings on the plan to kill Wayne at a time of weakness, back when Nygma first pleaded to make a deal with me. The Batman and I had proven to be equal in direct combat on the previous occasions that we had fought, so I found a way to tip the odds in my favor. Was that unfair, or was it justified or even expected that one of us should use more than just our fists to fight the other?

Impersonating Batman to turn his city against him, using Nygma's resources in the police department to wear him down, confronting Wayne in his home when he was injured and exhausted; are these not acceptable practices in the art of war? To learn and take advantage of an opponent's secrets, turn his assets into your strengths, taking opportunities when they present themselves; these are typically seen as actual goals in warfare.

So why do I feel as if the Red Hood is speaking the truth when he calls me a coward?

My enemy's knife catches in the kevlar vest, stopped just above my heart. I could count on the advantage of having the raw killing instinct on my side while I was fighting Wayne, but this masked man is different, more vulnerable to his rage. Whether that is good or bad for me, I cannot yet say.

Without missing a beat, I go for a killing stroke to his neck while he is still pressing the knife against my chest, but he deflects my fingers with his free hand before pulling back to get out of my immediate arms reach.

"Whatever you may think, I am not here to impress you, cretin." I lunge at him with a closed fist, but it is only a feint. I am really aiming for disarmament, as the knife is not something I am willing to risk. He avoids my grasp once, but it leaves him open to a small attack, where I deliver my elbow sharply to the side of his helmet. It still hasn't fully broken yet, but the cracks spider webbing across his visage give me a measure of satisfaction. "Bringing you here to distract you from my people cleaning up the East End was only the secondary goal," I say when I finally use my size to my advantage and get hold of the hand holding Red Hood's knife, twisting it quickly to let the weapon fly free from his grip and down to the streets below. I would have preferred to have caught it for myself, but it doesn't much matter. With my attention focused on his hand, Hood seizes the opportunity to slam his helmeted head into my face and break free from my grasp.

The observation deck jerks downward one last time and my remaining soldiers all dive off, and I prepare myself to follow. "The true objective for tonight was to make a statement, both to you and your kind, as well as the entirety of this city: Gotham belongs to Bane!"

"If you cannot live with that, get ready to join Wayne in the hospital or the others who've faced me, in the morgue. I would have liked to finish the job for myself, but time is working against me as I'm forced to leap off of what remains of the observation deck and deploy my parachute. I can only hope that Red Hood and the Question are both killed in the collapsing building.

__________________"Look into the soul of Bane and know the truth. We will topple your kingdom if it takes an eternity. We will defeat Hell."

"Whatever you may think, I am not here to impress you, cretin." I lunge at him with a closed fist, but it is only a feint. I am really aiming for disarmament, as the knife is not something I am willing to risk. He avoids my grasp once, but it leaves him open to a small attack, where I deliver my elbow sharply to the side of his helmet. It still hasn't fully broken yet, but the cracks spider webbing across his visage give me a measure of satisfaction. "Bringing you here to distract you from my people cleaning up the East End was only the secondary goal," I say when I finally use my size to my advantage and get hold of the hand holding Red Hood's knife, twisting it quickly to let the weapon fly free from his grip and down to the streets below. I would have preferred to have caught it for myself, but it doesn't much matter. With my attention focused on his hand, Hood seizes the opportunity to slam his helmeted head into my face and break free from my grasp.

The observation deck jerks downward one last time and my remaining soldiers all dive off, and I prepare myself to follow. "The true objective for tonight was to make a statement, both to you and your kind, as well as the entirety of this city: Gotham belongs to Bane!"

"If you cannot live with that, get ready to join Wayne in the hospital or the others who've faced me, in the morgue. I would have liked to finish the job for myself, but time is working against me as I'm forced to leap off of what remains of the observation deck and deploy my parachute. I can only hope that Red Hood and the Question are both killed in the collapsing building.

NO!

Every part of me screams out at once as he leaps off into open air, deploying his chute and managing to glide just out of harm's reach - and completely out of range. The man who nearly killed Bruce, the psychopath who murdered hundreds of people tonight, and he gets to live to see another day. I could shoot somebody right now for not acting quicker. Begrudingly, perhaps even foolishly believing my chance still even exists, I leap over the next chasm of falling debris and concrete and make it out onto the edge. Just in time to see Bane become nothing but a hidden sillouete among the skyscrapers of Gotham.

Dammit, the son of a b**** made it! Fractured plating in the helmet cuts into my face just in time to distract me from preventing a nasty spill across the ruins of the balcony, only adding further insult to injury as the last of Wonder Tower begins it's plummet towards Gotham. The machineary and centuries' old elevator gears combust into one giant fireball, knocking me off of my perch and forcing my body over the railing all at once. Instinctually, I spin and grab hold of the rail to start to pull myself up, but it's a useless gesture that only worsens the situation. The whole thing's coming down at once. I can only barely hear Question's screams in the background over the wind, threatening us with an imminent demise.

Like hell it's gonna end like this. I'm going to find that bastard and make him suffer for everything he's done. I don't care if it takes weeks, months, or even years to do it. The next time we meet, I will end him.

"QUESTION, THE RAIL! GET TO THE RAIL!

Wasting breath. He's too busy panicking to do anything I tell him to. Don't blame him in the least. It's gonna take a miracle to get out of this alive. I take a deep breath and stare at the sky, at clouds that are shrinking above us as we tumble further downwards. Alright, Todd. Time to put up or shut up. You spent all those years teaching yourself how to be the best. You never let yourself quit before. Always pushed when the limit was far beyond it's breaking point. This is no different.

You wanna prove that you're every bit as good as Batman?

Now's your chance. Don't screw it up.

"RRRRGH!"

I feel my shoulder snap out of place, violently forcing myself up and over the observation deck. Mountains of debris ahead of me. A stray piece even hits the back of the helmet, forcing a chunk of it off and drawing a hell of alot of blood from the exposed scalp. Every part of me is aching more than I can bear. But I manage to ignore all of it long enough to push ahead. Question's holding on for dear life, profusely apologizing for every rotten thing he's ever done in it. I reserve enough strength to somersault over an obstacle of debris, leap into the fray of his side of the wreckage, and lock my arm around his waist. Then I take another deep breath.

Okay. The entire tower that's coming undone? That was nothing.

This is the part that's gonna kill us if I don't do it right.

"HANG ON!"

I may not have a Batrope, but I have a rope. And it comes swinging wildly out of my jacket once I pull the release cord, flying upwards into a vault that passes the nearby skyscrapers. We're barely even twenty feet below ground at this point. Going to be a difference of seconds between death and whatever the hell happens as a result of this insane stunt. But again, I push all of it aside and tether the rope onto a random skyscraper in the distance.

And with a heavy tug that nearly dislocates the other shoulder, we both go swinging into the night. Leaving the last remnants of Wonder Tower to crash into the streets below.

I may not have a Batrope, but I have a rope. And it comes swinging wildly out of my jacket once I pull the release cord, flying upwards into a vault that passes the nearby skyscrapers. We're barely even twenty feet below ground at this point. Going to be a difference of seconds between death and whatever the hell happens as a result of this insane stunt. But again, I push all of it aside and tether the rope onto a random skyscraper in the distance.

And with a heavy tug that nearly dislocates the other shoulder, we both go swinging into the night. Leaving the last remnants of Wonder Tower to crash into the streets below.

"MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMY!"

Hood and I swung away from the crumbling wreckage of Wonder Tower. The force of the implosion knocked us further away and spinning in the air. I was holding on to Q's waist as hard as I could, but he lost his grip on the rope and we were airborne."AHHHH!"

We both spun and twirled towards the ground. The roof of an apartment building was rushing up to meet us. Hood crashed into a rooftop garden among all the plants and soft potting soil. Me? I fell through the small tin roof of a bird coop being kept on the roof.

"Oh, God," I said from the floor of the coop, covered in the feathers and cap of pigeons. "This... is... hell."

I groaned and sat up, picking my dirty hat off the floor and putting it on my head. I stumbled out the coop and found Hood dusting potting soil off his shoulders.

"Give it to me straight, how bad does it look?"

Hood tilted his head, looking down at my crotch. I looked down and quickly pulled my hat off to hide the wet spot on my groin.

"I didn't do it out of fear! I had a lot to drink earlier, didn't exactly have time to stop for a pee, did I?!"

__________________

"These are the times that try men's souls... Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph."

-- Thomas Paine

"People never lie so much as after a hunt, during a war or before an election."
-- Otto von Bismarck

I groaned and sat up, picking my dirty hat off the floor and putting it on my head. I stumbled out the coop and found Hood dusting potting soil off his shoulders.

"Give it to me straight, how bad does it look?"

Hood tilted his head, looking down at my crotch. I looked down and quickly pulled my hat off to hide the wet spot on my groin.

"I didn't do it out of fear! I had a lot to drink earlier, didn't exactly have time to stop for a pee, did I?!"

"Heh. Superman, you are not."

I still have the sense of mind to crack jokes, but inside, I'm doing nothing but cursing up a storm. We did alot of good tonight, sure. I won't deny that, I'm not that much of a pessimist. With the help of Barbara and the thief, we took down several dozen different rioting factions in the city during a serious time of crisis. But looking over Question's shoulder, seeing the ruins of what used to be the tallest structure in Gotham and knowing who took it down - and why - I can't help but think that we still failed. Bane and his men are long since gone, their message sent and their mission accomplished. I can already see the legions of press and police vans racing to cover the scene at once. No one's gonna remember the lives actually saved, but everyone'll sure as hell remember this for a long time to come.

And the worst part is, I could have easily stopped him. If I'd just played it alot smarter than I did up there, and didn't let my emotions get the best of me, Bane would have paid for his crimes and then some. But the maniac goes free, and we're no closer to bringing him in than before I knew he even existed. I can feel my skin grow cold and my blood burn at the same time, watching the destruction continuing to unfold as the last remnants of Wonder Tower begin to scatter into a thick cloud of smoke. Probably ended up killing at least a few more, there.

Damn him. Damn him for what he did to Bruce. If he'd have been here, none of this would have happened. Instead, what Bane got was a raving lunatic bent on a beheading. I can't believe I actually said I'd kill him. I meant it, too - a twist of that knife against his chest, and it would have all been over.

"Look at it. What that bastard accomplished tonight,", I casually mention, painfully aware of the incredible loss that the city's just recieved. "He really kicked our asses. And now he's gone."

I know Question's considered a joke. I know that, to some degree, he even sees himself as one. But at least he kept his cool tonight. At the end of it, that has to count for something.

As contractors to the US government, Bishop Laboratories housed many a top secret project. As such, security inside the facility was the highest. A dozen armed guards patrolled outside the facility. An electric fence surrounded the compound and the lab itself had three feet thick, steel reinforced walls. For all its security measures, all it took was one man's powers over Mother Nature to make it all crumbling down. The electric fence had been shattered to ice shards, the armed guards frozen and encased in blocks of ice. And now, ice was eating through the secure walls and eroding away the reinforced walls.

WHAM!

A frozen chunk of wall came crumbling down, allowing a perfect hole. A figure walked across the frozen rubble and entered the lab.

"Captain Cold to Top. I'm in."

"Proceed to lab 4F," the voice of Dr. Roscoe Dillon said into Cold's earpiece.

Snart acknowledged and came to a stop outside a sealed door marked 4F. A quick blast of frozen energy knocked the door down. Cold walked inside the lab where a box was sitting on a table. He popped open the box and looked inside at three vials, one filled with red liquid, one filled with green liquid, and one with blue liquid.

"I found it," Cold said into his mic. He picked the box up and looked at it. "What is it?"

"Need to know only, Snart. Now--""That," a deep, calm voice crackled across the line. It was a voice that Snart had only heard once before. The time he had met Dillon's boss. The Octopus. "That is how I take the Twin Cities for all they're worth."

Quote:

Originally Posted by Byrd Man

Axis Chemicals-Kansas
Keystone City, KS
12:10 PM

Michelle Rory walked through the warehouse of Axis Chemicals-Kansas. Her heat containment suit was sealed and pressurized. The oxygen was flowing from the tank on her back to her breather mask. On her hip holsters were her two flame-throwing guns."We ready to go, Lassie?"A voice said from behind her. Rory turned and saw the image of Mirror Master staring back at her inside the shiny reflection of an oxygen tank.

"Depends," she said through the mic inside her suit. "What's the status on the staff?"

"Dealt with," McCulloch said as he leaped out the reflection. Unlike Rory, he had no guns or specialty weapons. His special talents were his own, not gadgets and guns.

"Standby," Dillon said into their ear. "Weather Wizard's part is coming to an end... right now. Okay, start your parts now."

"Right," Heatwave said, pulling her heatguns from their holsters.

"Burn, baby, burn," McCulloch said with a large grin.

Fox Building
Central City, MO
12:11 PM

"One-two, chachacha--." My fists crashed into Weather Wizard's face and body in a gentle and smooth rhythm. "Three-four, chachacha--." I struck another blow and then tripped him up, sending Mardon sprawling to the ground and his weather wand up into the air. I zipped over and caught the wand before it hit the ground, and then looked down at Mardon. "And that is how I kick you butt in style."

As soon as the weather wand was out of his control, the skies began to clear and brighten, the bad weather dissipating as quickly as it had appeared.BOOOOOOOM

I turned at the sound of explosion and saw a fireball flashing up over the city. The explosion came from somewhere across the bridge in Keystone.

"Oh, boy," I muttered. "One of those days..."I turned to the semi-conscious Weather Wizard and took off, placing him in the lobby of the CCPD, handcuffed, dazed and separated from his wand.

With that garbage taken out, I began to race across the bridge back into Keystone to take on the explosion and its cause.

Axis Chemicals-Kansas
Keystone City, KS
12:12 PM

I skidded to a stop outside the chemical factory. Flames covered the building's roof and licked the sides and exterior walls of the facility. The intensity and heat coming from the building suggested it was a chemical fire. That'd be harder to put out. But before I could deal with the fire, I had to worry about the people probably trapped inside the building.

I took off into the burning building, speeding through the factory to find any survivors. I came to a stop in front of a burning vat of ammonia, coughing and covering my mouth from the fumes.

WOOOOOSH!

A column of flames erupted from the fire and twirled towards me. I quickly dodged the flames. While the fire was out of reach, the heat irradiating off of it heated up my cheeks.

"I missed," a voice said from the flames. A figure emerged from the fire.

"I don't miss twice."

Heatwave leveled her guns at me and shot full bore. I frantically twirled my arms to counter, creating a whirlwind that blew back the fire from her flamethrowers.

"How about now?!" I said as the fire reached her and began to cover her suit. I began to look around while she furiously patted out the flames on her fire-retardant suit. "This place is too hot for your boyfriend,"I said, sweat beginning to drip from my cheeks. "I know you two like to travel in a pack. So, where's Snart?"

Suddenly, four different Mirror Masters appeared beside me. All of them had their hands on their hips, McCulloch's annoying grin on their faces.
"Would ya look at that," they all said in unison. "The wee lad McCulloch's learned a few tricks. Me mum would be so proud. Now, which one of us is the real--"

I took off, bursting the glass projections into shards with super-excelerated punches. In just a few micro-seconds, I had the real Mirror Master in my hands. "Nice trick, McCulloch, but you need to--"

Suddenly, the man cracked and shattered into hundreds of shards of glass, slipping through my fingers and landing on the floor."I need to what? Get better? Oh, aye. On that, I agree with ye, lad."

The shards rapidly assembled themselves again, presenting a full-grown Mirror Master in front of me. His right hand shifted and turned into a glass sword. "Better, see?"

McCulloch swung wide at me, aiming for my neck. I stepped back quickly to avoid it, just in time to be knocked to the side by a fiery blast from Heatwave.

I fell to the ground, rolling my body on the ground to kill the flames while the two rogues loomed over me.

"Burn," Rory said through the comm system on her mask. She pointed her guns straight at me and pressed the triggers.

__________________

"These are the times that try men's souls... Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph."

-- Thomas Paine

"People never lie so much as after a hunt, during a war or before an election."
-- Otto von Bismarck

"Look at it. What that bastard accomplished tonight,", I casually mention, painfully aware of the incredible loss that the city's just recieved. "He really kicked our asses. And now he's gone."

I know Question's considered a joke. I know that, to some degree, he even sees himself as one. But at least he kept his cool tonight. At the end of it, that has to count for something.

What the hell did I become up there?

"You're right. He's gone."

I placed my hat back on my head and took of my feather and poop stained trenchcoat and jacket, tossing them on the ground and revealing my white dress shirt and black tie.

"Well, that's the end of this suit... but, anyway, that bastard licked us like a horny seventeen year old going down on his girlfriend. And he quietly slipped away into the night... kinda like a seventeen year old finding out his girlfriend is pregnant. But that doesn't matter. You know why? Because there's always tomorrow. Look at me, for God's sake. Night after night I come out here to get my ass kicked and humiliated, and I keep coming back. Know why?"

"Brain damage?"
"That's... that's a sound theory, actually. But no. I come out here because, with every ass whooping or botched plan, I learn how not to do. Slowly, but surely I'm learning to get better at this and I am. Hard to believe it, but I am. And tonight, we both learned who this guy is and what he's about. We learned how he plays things and how to take it to. And the next time we cross paths, it'll be on our terms and we'll make him pay. But, until then, tomorrow is just another day. We pick ourselves up and learn how to do better... and we also learn the value of MRIs. Those are important. Kinda surprised I haven't gotten one sooner, I have had a lot of head injuries over the past few years. I mean, my ears ring every time I turn on my microwave. That's not good."

__________________

"These are the times that try men's souls... Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph."

-- Thomas Paine

"People never lie so much as after a hunt, during a war or before an election."
-- Otto von Bismarck

"That's... that's a sound theory, actually. But no. I come out here because, with every ass whooping or botched plan, I learn how not to do. Slowly, but surely I'm learning to get better at this and I am. Hard to believe it, but I am. And tonight, we both learned who this guy is and what he's about. We learned how he plays things and how to take it to. And the next time we cross paths, it'll be on our terms and we'll make him pay. But, until then, tomorrow is just another day. We pick ourselves up and learn how to do better... and we also learn the value of MRIs. Those are important. Kinda surprised I haven't gotten one sooner, I have had a lot of head injuries over the past few years. I mean, my ears ring every time I turn on my microwave. That's not good."

"No, it really isn't. Get that checked out."

I ignore alot of what he says, because I don't agree with it. Not that there won't be tomorrow, of course. There's always another way to peg the bastard for what he's done to Gotham. Even now, I can think of several different ways to track down where he's went off to hide - he made the mistake of mentioning mob connections, and they can be so very lenient when pressed against the wall. But no, what I disagree with is the fact that it doesn't matter. It does matter, especially to me. We were out here all night, endured a hell of alot of crap from the gangs, pushed ourselves to the absolute limit - and it all still wasn't enough to save all of the people that Bane's men executed.

And that's what I don't get about it all. We were good - hell, we were better than we've ever been. When the four of us were united against a common threat, we worked like a well-oiled machine. Even Barbara's level of skill seem to improve, despite the mistakes she still made in the heat of battle. But it still wasn't enough. We were just as good as Batman on his best day, yet we lacked anything he could have done to stop this. I just don't get it. Bane outsmarted us, humiliated us, forced us to watch his carnage unfold and then left. What went wrong?

What was missing?

"Hood? You still with us?"

I look back at Question, realizing I've been staring off for a few minutes now.

"Yeah, I was just thinking about that next time you were talking about. I could hit up a few leads, see if anything turns up."

What I fail to tell him is that I don't intend to bring him - or anyone else - along for that.

No, next time, it'll be a hell of alot more personal than that.

"I don't think we're gonna hear a peep from the gangs after this. Might aswell call it a night while everyone's focused on the Tower."

"Well, well, it seems that events are proceeding far better than our estimates would predict."

"Indeed. The Legion of Doom is now conducting simultaneous strikes against populated areas. Civilian casualties in Cape Town number in the hundreds, and thousands in Beijing. Interference from the Justice League has been minimal."

"Cape Town is under siege, Beijing is a war zone, and Superman and his friends are nowhere to be found. Savage is outdoing himself."

"You do realize Savage means to betray us, of course."

"Of course. I'd be insulted if he didn't. And the other members of the Society will have to choose their sides very carefully."

"I have calculated very small chance of betrayal from Queen Bee, or Ultra-Humanite. Should it come to open confrontation, Kobra and his cult will likely abstain from taking sides until a clear winner is determined. Ra's al Ghul and Felix Faust, however, both have at least a 72.88% chance of siding with Vandal Savage."

"Well, that simply won't do, will it, Brainiac? I believe it is time the Society picked up the slack of the world's governments and the Justice League, and send the Legion of Doom running."

"Inadvisable, Luthor. Even with our current firepower, a direct confrontation with Savage and the Legion is likely to result in defeat."

"Then we give them a show of force that their collective superpowers can't match. Are the Collector Pods ready for deployment?"

"Of course."

"Good. The first rule of handling any sort of outbreak is to contain it. I'd better get ready to make a statement to the press; they're about to see a quarantine the likes of which they can't even imagine."

Cape Town, South Africa

"Damn," Giganta swore to herself as she heard the roar of incoming fighter jets. The two enemy operatives, while clearly outmatched in terms of raw power, had been frustratingly elusive. And now, it seemed, they were getting outside help.

If it weren't for the LexCorp augmented-reality targeting HUD implanted into her contact lens, she would have missed the arrival of the Atom. A fellow size-manipulator, though her own powers covered the opposite end of the spectrum from Giganta. More importantly, Vandal Savage would be more forgiving for her failure to assassinate Nemesis if she instead brought him the head of a member of the Justice League.

However, it wasn't likely that she would be able to find and kill her targets in time. Those jets could launch missiles at her from miles away, leaving her no way to retaliate. She only had two real options: shrink down to normal size and hide among buildings in the hopes that the fighters wouldn't risk bombing civilians, or increase her mass large enough that she could withstand the attack.

Neither option appealed to her: shrinking down would leave her vulnerable to the enemy sniper if he was still alive, and growing larger would only make her a more visible target, also increasing the size of softer targets like her eyes.

"Damn it all," she cursed again as she shrunk, having to run for cover from the incoming fighters. It was infuriating, having to dishonor herself by running and hiding, but honor would do her no good if she got herself killed.

*KA-BOOOOOOOM!*

The concussive blast of an impacting missile sent Zuell flying off of her feet, leveling the block where she had stood only moments before. Her senses blurred and screamed, her lungs burned as they sucked in smoky air.

Seconds later, she was lying on the pavement, pain wracking her body. Even though she had avoided the worst of the blast, the shock wave still left her with soft tissue damage, possibly internal bleeding. Struggling painfully to her feet, she balled her hands into fists and began to grow.

Since running for cover seemed to do no good, she would instead try to withstand the attack--if she was going to die, she would die on her feet.

As the planes circled around for a second strafing run, Giganta noticed a shimmer in the air, the sky seeming to turn a pale green.

Then, as the jets streaked towards her, they shattered into a thousand pieces, orange fireballs blossoming in the air, as if they had slammed into a wall. From the points of impact, she saw ripples of green energy spread through the sky, revealing a glowing green honeycomb web.....some kind of force field?

"What on Earth....?" she said, her eyes growing wide as the force field began to solidify in the sky above Cape Town....

"Damn it all," she cursed again as she shrunk, having to run for cover from the incoming fighters. It was infuriating, having to dishonor herself by running and hiding, but honor would do her no good if she got herself killed.

*KA-BOOOOOOOM!*

The concussive blast of an impacting missile sent Zuell flying off of her feet, leveling the block where she had stood only moments before. Her senses blurred and screamed, her lungs burned as they sucked in smoky air.

Seconds later, she was lying on the pavement, pain wracking her body. Even though she had avoided the worst of the blast, the shock wave still left her with soft tissue damage, possibly internal bleeding. Struggling painfully to her feet, she balled her hands into fists and began to grow.

Since running for cover seemed to do no good, she would instead try to withstand the attack--if she was going to die, she would die on her feet.

As the planes circled around for a second strafing run, Giganta noticed a shimmer in the air, the sky seeming to turn a pale green.

Then, as the jets streaked towards her, they shattered into a thousand pieces, orange fireballs blossoming in the air, as if they had slammed into a wall. From the points of impact, she saw ripples of green energy spread through the sky, revealing a glowing green honeycomb web.....some kind of force field?

"What on Earth....?" she said, her eyes growing wide as the force field began to solidify in the sky above Cape Town....

"What the hell?" Flag said with a puzzled look. His relief at seeing the jets take down Giganta had quickly turned to dread once he saw the fighters mysteriously explode.

"Flag --kzzzz-- ear me?"

"You're breaking up," he said into his uplink with Waller.

"We're getting --kzzzzzz-- some kind of energy --kzzzz-- around the city. You need to --kzzzz--."

"Say again, I repeat, say again."

"INCOMING! GET THE HELL OUT OF THERE!"

Flag, Atom, and Deadshot all turned their heads upwards as a green ball of energy formed above the city. Suddenly, the ball exploded and sent a bright green beam down to the city. The ground beneath them began to shake and rattle like a massive earthquake was rocking the city.

"It's too late," Flag said. "We can't get away."

As soon as Flag said that, a dark hole appeared in front of them, floating in the air. They watched as it expanded and revealed the interior of a leer jet on the other side."Hurry up," Nightshade said from the other side of the portal she had created. "I can't hold it much longer."

Deadshot leaped through first while Flag and the miniaturized Atom followed behind. Flag landed on the floor of the jet and quickly turned around to watch what was happening on the other side of the portal. As the portal closed, a blinding green light filled the city, obscuring Flag's sight as the portal disappeared.

"Wall to Nightshade, are Flag and Deadshot secured?"

"Yes, ma'am," Nightshade said as she went back towards the cockpit of the plane. "And they brought a plus one."

"What just happened?" Flag asked Waller as he stood up. "What happened to the city?"

"I have no idea, Flag. The whole damn city just went off the grid. It's all cut off. You're only a few miles away. Nightshade, double back to the city and see what happened."

"Why is she still here, Wall?"

"Because you all needed an extraction."

"I thought you said we had to find our own way home."

"Yeah, well... I lied. You're coming up on the city. I want video footage of what just happened."

Flag placed his rifle on a nearby seat and activated the small pin camera on his lapel. Flag, Deadshot, and Atom leaned out the side of the plane and look down below at where Cape Town was... or it should have been.

"Holy ****..."

Where the vibrant metropolis had been just a few minutes earlier, all that was left was a deep crater in the South African soil.

"It's gone... the whole damn city's gone..."

__________________

"These are the times that try men's souls... Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph."

-- Thomas Paine

"People never lie so much as after a hunt, during a war or before an election."
-- Otto von Bismarck

"What the hell?" Flag said with a puzzled look. His relief at seeing the jets take down Giganta had quickly turned to dread once he saw the fighters mysteriously explode.

"Flag --kzzzz-- ear me?"

"You're breaking up," he said into his uplink with Waller.

"We're getting --kzzzzzz-- some kind of energy --kzzzz-- around the city. You need to --kzzzz--."

"Say again, I repeat, say again."

"INCOMING! GET THE HELL OUT OF THERE!"

Flag, Atom, and Deadshot all turned their heads upwards as a green ball of energy formed above the city. Suddenly, the ball exploded and sent a bright green beam down to the city. The ground beneath them began to shake and rattle like a massive earthquake was rocking the city.

"It's too late," Flag said. "We can't get away."

As soon as Flag said that, a dark hole appeared in front of them, floating in the air. They watched as it expanded and revealed the interior of a leer jet on the other side."Hurry up," Nightshade said from the other side of the portal she had created. "I can't hold it much longer."

Deadshot leaped through first while Flag and the miniaturized Atom followed behind. Flag landed on the floor of the jet and quickly turned around to watch what was happening on the other side of the portal. As the portal closed, a blinding green light filled the city, obscuring Flag's sight as the portal disappeared.

"Wall to Nightshade, are Flag and Deadshot secured?"

"Yes, ma'am," Nightshade said as she went back towards the cockpit of the plane. "And they brought a plus one."

"What just happened?" Flag asked Waller as he stood up. "What happened to the city?"

"I have no idea, Flag. The whole damn city just went off the grid. It's all cut off. You're only a few miles away. Nightshade, double back to the city and see what happened."

"Why is she still here, Wall?"

"Because you all needed an extraction."

"I thought you said we had to find our own way home."

"Yeah, well... I lied. You're coming up on the city. I want video footage of what just happened."

Flag placed his rifle on a nearby seat and activated the small pin camera on his lapel. Flag, Deadshot, and Atom leaned out the side of the plane and look down below at where Cape Town was... or it should have been.

"Holy ****..."

Where the vibrant metropolis had been just a few minutes earlier, all that was left was a deep crater in the South African soil.

"It's gone... the whole damn city's gone..."

In her time of being a super-hero Rhiannon Palmer had seen and done lot of things. She had been trapped inside of an alien, kidnapped by a Rouge Government Agent, Lost control of her powers, almost killed a trusted friend, blown-up a Government Installation, and traveled to another Universe where she was a queen.

Nothing though in her time could've prepared her for what she just saw. An entire city...annihilated. This has left her shaken to her core.

She just stares out of the window in stunned silence at the crater and crosses herself.

Atom then pulls herself together and says to Flagg, "One of two things. One The Legion of Doom is willing to kill not only innocent people but one of their own to make a point, or two there is a third player in this scenario."

Atom looks at Flagg and says, "I tend believe that there's a third player. That look on Giganta's face when the green ball appeared she wasn't expecting that one at all."

She floats up to Flagg and says, "We have to go back there at some point. That place is a crime scene now. We need to see if there's anything we can use to get some information about what's going on."

Atom steadies herself and says, "Not to mention your boss and I. Let's just say we aren't on each other's Christmas Card list."

__________________
Know yourself & your enemy & you need not fear the outcome of a thousand battles-- General Sun-Tzu

She floats up to Flagg and says, "We have to go back there at some point. That place is a crime scene now. We need to see if there's anything we can use to get some information about what's going on."

Atom steadies herself and says, "Not to mention your boss and I. Let's just say we aren't on each other's Christmas Card list."

"I'm not going back," Flag said. "I got a seriously injured man, a man with valuable intel on the people who did this. We're going to get him out of here ASAP. You want to stick around? Nightshade can get you on the ground. Either that, or the parachute in the back. Be my guest."

__________________

"These are the times that try men's souls... Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph."

-- Thomas Paine

"People never lie so much as after a hunt, during a war or before an election."
-- Otto von Bismarck